Ground Reference Maneuvers

Tuesday April 7th – It was a nice, but very windy day. There was about a 60 degree cross-wind. We took off and headed back over the Trenton area for the ground reference maneuvers. I knew that is would be a tricky task with a strong wind. The first maneuver was a rectangle track around a field. We started off with a tailwind on one side of the rectangle, the first turn to cross wind has to be greater than 90 degrees to maintain a ground track parallel with the field. The downwind turn leg was pretty quick then another left turn of under 90 degrees to hold the tack on the last side of the rectangle. From there we headed toward a cross road intersection to do turns around a point. The object is to complete circles around a point and maintain the same distance from the center. I tried to keep my wingtip pointed at my target, but quickly realized the relative wind direction change would not allow that. You have to vary the bank angle and rate of turn continuously to counter the wind forces and keep the clean circle track. The next maneuver was S-turns along a road. This is a series on 180 turns where you cross the road with the plane wings parallel to the road and level. After another 180 degree turn you should again cross the road with wings level and parallel to the road about ½ mile away from the previous crossing. Our final maneuver of the day was steep banks. Cameron demonstrated 45 degree bank turns while maintaining altitude and rolling out on a target in the distance. First a left 360 degree turn then a right. Then it was my turn. I made two good steep bank turns then we headed south back to Blue Ash. Cameron landed this time because of the gusting cross winds. He demonstrated a high landing approach with a forward slip to drop altitude quickly. That felt like an elevator dropping! After a masterful landing in the tough conditions we were taxiing back into place and shutting down for today. After getting back and looking at the ground tracks from the gps, the maneuvers were really not that bad. The circles were a bit flat on the up-wind side but other than that the tracks looked good.